Posted
by
timothy
on Monday March 29, 2010 @07:14AM
from the but-nothing-that-can't-get-past-the-border dept.

AirborneGamer writes "The Toronto Public Library is asking for $300K to build up a collection of video games. They have not said if they will buy all types of games, or leave out the M-rated ones. As the City Councilor of Toronto said about the project, 'It may be the only time a young person comes in. It can act as a magnet to attract people. Once we get them in there, you can be darn sure that our librarians will be hard at work to introduce them to everything else the library can offer.' This is a good plan actually, and besides bringing kids into the library it will bring in parents and or guardians who otherwise may not visit the library on their own."

Libraries are becoming increasingly less relevant to the generations who grew up with the internet at their disposal. I personally only made the trips back to the library when they started offering DVD's/ Blurays.

Books still do in-depth coverage that just isn't being done by the vast majority of the sites on the Internet.

They also have the advantage of better editing (compare, for example, to slashdot...)

Libraries also do other things than just lend out books - if you or someone you know has pre-school kids, for example, you might want to check out their other programs. Ditto for pretty much any other age group, right up to seniors.

It struck me as odd that the local library had a condom machine in the toilet, but maybe I'm just missing out on some of the more modern uses for a library.

I've actually only just joined the library. They have much newer books than Project Gutenberg, so I can read recent fiction for free (and since I can get through most novels in an afternoon, it's a lot cheaper than buying them). I'm currently in the process of moving house, and after creating a large stack of boxes of books I'm a lot less keen on th

The web is quick 'n' dirty information, like indeed on/. It's where you see it first - or well at least well before the information arrives in book form. Traditional newspapers are in between. Way faster than books though lagging well behind web sites.

Books are great for reference of slowly-changing information, though web sites and e-books have their merit in that realm too. Books are certainly unbeaten when it comes to historical reference.

My mother's assistant director at a suburban public library. They just developed a "youth center," filled with Wii & Playstation consoles to attract youth to the library and give them a place to hang out.

What they soon discovered was that it got more attention than they expected. Kids would just loiter there all day on the weekend, or all evening on weekdays. Many parents also dropped their kids off at the library in the morning and left them there all day. The library isn't built to be a babysitting service, but lots of parents didn't see it that way. They started having problems with graffiti, fights, turf wars, and other general mischief, and complaints from the general patrons have been on the rise.

Free video games in public places may attract kids, but they often attract the wrong kind of kids. The jury's out on whether or not the attraction actually increases awareness and utilization of the public library.

The library of a friend of mine loans out not just games, but entire game systems. I'm not sure if teens check it out as much as older people, or which department it's kept in. I kind of doubt they're kept in the teen department where general circulation might miss them.

eReaders too, despite being in violation of the user agreement for one big name reader, who of course has gained many sales after patrons try it and subsequently buy their own.

I'm sure there's a solution for this, as you can rent games from lots of places other than the library, right? Maybe there are special editions of the games which are specially made for rental and not meant for sale or something?

I'm sure there's a solution for this, as you can rent games from lots of places other than the library, right?

At least in the United States, 17 USC 109 reserves the right to rent or lend copies of computer programs exclusively to the copyright owner with three exceptions: 1. nonprofit libraries, 2. software embedded into a device that can't be copied out of the device, and 3. console games. So nonprofit libraries are the only place that one can try PC games without a demo before buying them. What does Canada's copyright statute say about this?

All the popular titles use some kind of DRM. Did they keep this in mind? What will the publishers say? Are there for rent versions or will the librarians just have to go and unlock the games through dozens of different hotlines or however this works?

For computer games I don't think this is feasable anymore. I'm assuming they mean console games.
OTOH, it would be nice if they included links on the Library's page for DRM free PC games made available by the Publisher.
Things like C&C, GTA, and the 'Elder Scrolls' I &II are free to download.

I hope they'll have better recommendations than the one the company I rent films from uses for their online streaming section. At the end of pretty much everything I've watched, it's told me that Pulp Fiction and The Shawshank Redemption are at the top of the 'more like this' list. I've never seen a film that is like both of those, and I'm not certain that I'd want to.

Back in the early '90ies, I got loads of games from the public city library in my home town. It was especially great for adventure games, because they have a limited replay value anyway. And my library got all the CD-ROM versions, which meant you could get full speech on games like Day of the Tentacle, which was awesome of course.

I'm an American living in Norway and I was shocked to find that my local library has a large collection of Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 games that can be checked out. They also have a sound-proof room where you can play Guitar Hero and Rock Band, as well as a large collection of contemporary music CDs with everything from Metallica to obscure Norwegian music. You can listen to them there or check them out. My wife checked one out and lost it, only finding it several months later and they didn't even make her pay a fee or a late charge. I've been here a while now but back when I had just moved here and was learning Norwegian, I used to go in and use the computers. They had children's games with everything from Oregon Trail-type clones to Harry Potter. It helped me learn vocabulary that wasn't in my books and get a working knowledge of the language, not just the grammatically-correct style that almost no one speaks. One day, a new bitchy librarian decided that I wasn't allowed to use the ones with the games on them because they're "for children", even though there are ten of those PCs and hardly any children in there. Norwegians can be like that, but I digress. I never counted how many PCs they actually have in there, but there are at least 30 for surfing the web, research, or looking through the library's online catalogues. Interestingly, the ones for games run Windows and all the others run Linux.

I'm an American living in Finland and am similarly amazed at what is on offer in the public libraries here. Heck, here the library even has real musical instruments you can reserve. Very rarely do I not find a CD I'm looking for in the libraries here, and I like some pretty obscure music. Yes, Nordic libraries are just one of the reasons I've decided I'm here to stay.

I am an American Living in America, and my local libraries have video games, mostly Wii, PS3, Xbox360, I have not seen any computer video games. By local libraries I mean 37 in my county alone with the ability to get materials from any library in northern NJ.

Our libraries are crowded with people from all over the world. Trying to learn how to live and thrive in their new country. After our separation from the USA, which will probably happen within twenty years, I hope that they choose to stay with us. E

All the Nordic countries have libraries like this, and only Norway has significant amounts of oil. As I posted above, in Finland, where the only natural resource is wood (and Brazil is beating us out on wood exports these days) and there isn't much to the economy besides Nokia, the libraries are just as good. It's simply a different use of citizen's taxes than in other countries.

If they did, you would be disappointed. Norwegian law for porn is similar to that of Japan (well, you can show naughty bits on their own, but penetration is censored).
We used to skip the border to Sweden to get the dirty stuff (porn, spirits and bacon). Now the former is available online for free..so..

I lived in the Netherlands about ten years ago and my local library had an extensive collection of music and movies (VHS and DVD). In addition they had quite a lot of older PC-games. The best part was their kick ass English book section with a lot of sci-fi and fantasy.

I now live in rural southern Ohio. My library has a modest selection of DVDs, no PC games, and one aisle of Manga, graphic novels, science fiction, and fantasy - and most of the sf/fantasy section is Star Wars novels, fantasy series aimed at idiots, and similar dreck. Not ONE Heinlein novel. No Zelazny. No Iain M. Banks. No... but you get the picture.

I feel like I'm living in a third-world country, here - or at least a third-rate one...

But I hate the idea of tax money going to frivolous things like this. Personally, I can't stand that my library lends DVDs and music too. Public libraries, in my opinion, should solely be about self-improvement and betterment. Books, movies, and music should be classics, self-help, technical, etc. It doesn't make a lot of sense to have the library just be a surrogate Blockbuster/Netflix/Gamefly.

Libraries are there to upkeep culture and the arts, and modern media and video games are very much a part of our culture. Just because something isn't "Moby Dick" doesn't mean it isn't poignant or worthwhile.

We won't call you "conservative," we'll just call you short-sighted and ill-informed.

The "classics" for which you pine were once upon a time a previous generation's pop culture, in very many cases. And I wish I had a dollar for every kid who picked up a copy of Bullfinch or Hamilton after playing a game in the "God of War" series -- or watching a season of Xena, for that matter.

Culture is one long conversation, the present building upon the past, creating the shapers of its future. Guys like you who want to pick, choose, and control aren't enabling Art, you're obstructing her.

Call me conservative also, but I think libraries should be places of knowledge. I think the intentions of the Toronto libraries are good, but 'getting kids through the door with video games' is IMO naive -- as in it doesn't work like that (from my experience).

When pop CDs/DVDs were introduced at my local library, it slowly turned into a 'hang-out' space where chatter was ok because the librarians didn't want to confront or play the 'stickler librarian' role. Did it achieve the goal of getting non-reader

Don't presume it's tax dollars. At a large library here, they are no longer buying DVDs in favor of Bluray because the donor who provides money for the video collection now wants Bluray.

Also don't forget, the form of media delivery doesn't impact it's value of "self-improvement and betterment".

Libraries were formed as surrogate book stores, specifically to bring content to a wider audience. They are currently in a significant shift as their patrons are demanding fewer books and more online/electronic reso

Maybe I was wrong and they're just ignoring the sign on my lawn that says no trespassing. On the plus side it gives me an excuse to yell, "Hay you kids!!! Get the hell off my lawn!!". Which oddly enough I wished I had an excuse to use when I was in high school. Huh, be careful what you wish for.

Our local library does this. they have XBox 360, PS3, and Wii games available (I think PS2 as well, but not sure). It's definitely a great way to get folks into the library and see what else might be in there.

My libraries has popular videos. Frugal people go there and check out videos. There is no real educational purpose to it. I think it is ok because there part of what a library does is provide a cultural reference, which does include the popular tv shows and movies. Die Hard, for instance, provides a unique cultural path of America over the past 20 years or so.

Video games now serve that function and having them in libraries is probably long overdue. The only issue I see is which console to support. Unl

You could convert a library into a cybercafe or a disco, and that may atract more/different type of people. But thats not really atracting more people to a library, more like atracting people to a cybercafe/disco that use to be a library.

The idea sould be make the library more interesting, that could be adding a cybercafe to it, anything really, but thats that "fit" the existing things, so the core of the experience is not damaged.

If you want to make a romantic sci-fi movie, your first step can't be to drop

Do you stop carrying books if they move to books on tape? Do libraries refuse to carry fiction? No.
Libraries are places where we store and share media, not just written words. Video games are the new media and deserve to be stored.
As for copyright protection, the library should have the legal write to circumvent it, but the holders will probably object and attempt to use the force of law to prevent it.

Wouldn't they achieve the same result by carrying game strategy guides? That way kids are actually learning to go to a library to use it for research purposes. Some may not agree that the research topic is worthwhile, but I can't believe those detractors would think video games themselves would hold more research value.

It isn't "The City Councilor". This is ONE city councilor. There are 44 of them. This has been pitched by one (Adam Vaughan). This is like one senator saying "We should do something about Washington's birthday", and being reported as "US Government Changes Washington's Birthday"

Mr. Vaughan sits on (amongst other boards) The Library Board [wikipedia.org]. So is it any surprise he's pitching a radical plan

Much like many older "brick and mortar" stores have had to do to survive over the years, libraries need to follow suit. They either need to feature a very strong online presence (as in actually useful) or merge their resources together into a massive central location that's easily accessible and relatively clean/safe.

In recent years, libraries have gotten a bad rap for stock-housing materials that are so outdated that the materials themselves are either no longer relevant or are now historically inaccurate.

I want to create a free movie lending library that streams to Roku boxes and only allows one person to watch a movie at a time per disc owned but legalities make it difficult. It's probably legal to do but to do it would require removing the DRM, to transcode the content into the right format, which is illegal.:p

I want to create a free movie lending library that streams to Roku boxes and only allows one person to watch a movie at a time per disc owned but legalities make it difficult. It's probably legal to do but to do it would require removing the DRM, to transcode the content into the right format, which is illegal.:p

The scenario you're describing is only illegal in the US, this article is about Canada. Format shifting is legal up here.

Why bother? The libraries already have DVDs on the shelf. Most suburban public library branches have hundreds of titles available. Plus they are all listed on the web and available for reserve. Go to the local branch, check them out, watch them for a week, copy them (with DVD decrypter or DVDshrink) if you choose to, bring them back, repeat.
All legal, all free, all under-the-radar of the corporate monkeys and their lawyers.

Okay, where can I go to find free books, movies and music in physical formats, online? I don't want to download to a screen reader. I want an actual physical book. One I can take out on my lawn and shake at you kids, yelling, "Get off my lawn or I'll throw this book at you!"

Now, I have a further question. Name one single media technology that has killed off any previous media technologies. Okay, okay, the telegraph finally died a few years ago after a hundred and fifty plus year run. But I still read books, see plays, listen to radio, watch TV, and go to movies. All of which have been pronounced 'dead' by various prognosticators at one time or another. All of whom have been wrong. I don't think the Internet is going to kill anything off. And there is a sizable group of people for whom their local public library IS their Internet access point: low income and homeless people.

The purpose of libraries is to pay for an externality: an educated and cultured citizenry, one of the cornerstones of any democracy. Because every citizen gains value from having an educated and cultured populace, but baring government intervention only the individual pays for it, the price point of culture and information does not reflect its true value to society, and we need things like libraries and public schools.

Now, some people do not see the cultural or educational value in video games, but I ask you this: how will people who know nothing of video games vote correctly on issues regarding video games? Will they just listen to kooks who tell them video games are evil? If they have to buy or rent games, they may not bother to check them out for themselves. But if anyone can check out a game from their local library. maybe a few people will actually look for themselves when someone says so and so game is evil, immoral, and bad for kids. This is a good thing for society, and worth our tax dollars.

Your model airplane hobby is not important to your function as a citizen of the US. Education is. Libraries provide a valuable function to society. Being a model airplane pilot does enhance your ability to contribute to society. It is not a positive externality like being educated is. Societies around the world have agreed on the value of public libraries for hundreds of years. You just don't feel like paying your fair share for the benefits you receive. Fortunately, we live in a democracy, and we can vote

You notice we never see stories when libraries want to spend money on graphic novels, or money on subscriptions to teen magazines, or money on the hundreds of other items that are only of interest to a few people. You're not going to believe this, but libraries in the Chicago system have (gasp!) chessboards! Call out the Tea Parties!

But we're supposed to all go into paroxysms of anti-government outrage when a library system wants to buy...games.

You know how many soldiers $300,000 would train and outfit? None! You get ONE KID who comes from a family too poor to buy games and he learns to love games and grows up to start a company that makes games and you've made many times that much money in taxes.

God damn I am tired of people who've enjoyed the fruits of public spending and are now complaining about anybody else doing so.

>>>God damn I am tired of people who've enjoyed the fruits of public spending and are now complaining about anybody else doing so.

I never set foot in a government-funded library my whole life, and I seem to have made out okay (engineer - two degrees). And now that we have the internet, such that I or anybody else can download literally millions of free books (or just read wikipedia), the government-funded libraries are even less necessary.

Good thing that public libraries provide computers in most, if not all, parts of the U.S. Otherwise, I might say that there's a whole bunch of disenfranchised people in inner cities who can't afford internet access.

Oh, wait. Those internet-enabled computer in the libraries that anyone can use? They're very much a suburban thing in the quantity needed to serve the community.

You have no idea what its like to be poor, do you? Your anecdotal bullshit about 'inner-city' people with cellphones is ludicrous. Rich and middle class people do live in and visit inner cities. Did you count all the people without them? No. Of course not.

Let me ask you a question. Did you go to public school? If so, you received a public benefit that exists for the same reason libraries do. A democracy can't function without an educated populace. Would you deny that education to older people who may have missed out on a good public education for whatever reason? If so, you are cutting off your nose to spite your face. You benefit from being a part of a more educated populace. Therefore, your taxes should go to help pay for that benefit.

Over half of all low income families use the public library as their primary Internet connection. You try making ends meet with a family living on $30,000 a year, and that with two breadwinners both of whom probably work multiple jobs. See if you can afford that $100 computer plus $7 a month when you are already forced to choose between buying heat, medicine, or food this month. They don't have access. It is true. You can lie to yourself about poverty all you like, if that helps you sleep soundly at night, but it doesn't change the facts. Just keep telling yourself, "The world is fair. Good people are rewarded. Bad people are punished. Everyone gets a fair shot. The only reason people fail is through their own lack of effort." but don't be surprised when people of conscience do not respect you.

never set foot in a government-funded library my whole life, and I seem to have made out okay (engineer - two degrees). And now that we have the internet, such that I or anybody else can download literally millions of free books (or just read wikipedia), the government-funded libraries are even less necessary.

I'm not sure if you're an idiot or a troll... I simply do not believe you can have earned two degrees, in any subject, without entering a library. Or is there some catch, your university library is not "government funded"? And since when is Wikipedia a citeable source for any academic work?

And now that we have the internet, such that I or anybody else can download literally millions of free books (or just read wikipedia), the government-funded libraries are even less necessary.

You do realize that not all books are alike, yes? Even if there are three million free books available online, that's only a sixth of the books estimated to exist worldwide. And an in-depth book is better than Wikipedia for anything but the most cursory look at a topic. There's a reason Wikipedia requires sources, and there's a reason that most of those sources are books--many of which, I might add, you can't find on Gutenberg Project or Amazon. Libraries may indeed outlive their usefulness, but it has

God damn I am tired of people who've enjoyed the fruits of public spending and are now complaining about anybody else doing so.

God damn, I'm tired of people using this as an excuse to justify whatever god damn lame-ass public spending program they can dream up* and tax whomever it takes because they owe it to the rest of the country. And if they don't pay their "fair share" (which is as big as we say it is) they're being unpatriotic leeches. Doubly so for businesses who don't go out of their way to pay the

Same here - economically a traditionally low-earning area in the Deep South, technologically - well, most folks here can't even spell that word. But we have a dedicated room in the library with (~a dozen) new rigs and what seem to me as a non-gamer to be recent titles with an emphasis on shoot-em-up type games.

Yet when I offer to use the facilities in order to teach a class _for free_ to these same people about how to use Open Source technologies in order that they might be able to take a 'clunker' system

Words can change to refer to new things. It's called semantic shift. It's a normal, everyday phenomenon of human language. The vast. vast majority of people are completely unaware of the etymology and have no problem in understanding libraries as fundamentally places where information is stored.

And now that I think of it, can you source your etymology of liber? In Latin the word was used not only for writings written into wax tablets, papyrus and vellum, as well as for literary creations that hadn't even been written down. Martial refers to his body of epigrams, which he delivered at recitals (and only then were written down and preserved by the audience) as libri. Paper produced from wood pulp was unknown to the Romans.

What do you mean, games and movies don't tell stories? Storytelling is the main driving force behind games nowadays, even on the consoles and even the mainstream ones, and they're often quite complex too.

Maybe we should stop calling them libraries. Library comes from Liber and refers to "inner bark" or wood, and refers to books made out of trees. I don't think music, videos and games are made of trees, nor are they rooted in trees. Maybe they do in the sense of telling stories, but I wouldn't consider half the media today to tell a congruent story.

I guess the question then, is what is a "Library"?

Literally, I suppose, the word means a place that stores/lends books... But is that really all a library is? Just books?

I guess the question is more what a library is supposed to accomplish... Is it literally just a storehouse for piles of bound paper? Is that all we're worried about - just collecting a bunch of paper together?

To me, it seems, the value was always the information that was stored in the paper.

Actually, "kiehlster" is derived from the German "kielmister" or "kiel" which is a surname of Viking decent from the commonwealth of Kiel, Germany. It refers to the the keel of a boat and is thus considered to mean "ship's captain". But you know us viking ship captains. We're always screwy in some way.

And yes, the strippers would certainly recruit more interest in public libraries. Maybe one could write some legal rebuttal to illegal prostitution in this way. After all, we approve of public libraries

Post a sign. Children must be supervised. When you find unsupervised children, call the police. Have their parents cited. Problem solved. Leaving your children unsupervised at the library is no different from leaving them unsupervised at any business, or street corner for that matter. If the child isn't old enough to supervise himself, that's neglect.

I thought they did a great job, although ultimately I agree with you. I don't really see a point in the hundreds of billions of dollars athletes consume in order to compete. Really the Olympics are just an event where every country stands around and measures their penis size. I really feel bad for the athletes that don't do well despite the funding they receive. And by "don't do well" I mean they could still kick the crap out of any normal person in their sport, but they might have had an off day or were 1s

The kids that want to go to the library already do. Their parents usually are readers also and tought them by example.

The idea is to give those kids who don't go another reason to go. If they don't go because they're not that interested in books, then they might go because of games. Once there, they might discover that books (or one of the other things on offer) hold something of interesting for them as well.

Also, I'm not sure why a kid would want to go to the library to play video games. Most kids have what they need to play at home.

Seems like wasted money to me.

The same reason people go for books -- not everyone can afford to buy every game they would like to experience. Most kids from a certain economic background might "have what they need", but there are significant sectio

I don't think you can bait and switch kids into reading this way, but that's not the only reason libraries should carry video games. Video games are a new medium that's quickly becoming part of our cultural heritage. It's just as important that libraries preserve and distribute them as any other medium. It's just as important for a young person to be exposed to masterpieces like Ocarina of Time as it is for them to listen to the Hot Fives and Sevens, or read Where the Red Fern Grows.

My mother used to teach children from a poor area, and you might be surprised at how few books many of the parents had. A lot of children grow up in houses which don't have any books on display and easy to read - or any books at all. If they're in the library for a computer game, they're near books. If they're checking out a game that has some tie-in novels, the librarian can suggest that they might like to read the book as well. I can see this working especially well for games based on books, such as t